Career Upgrade: Service Manager to Shop Owner at 29 Years Old [RR 608]

Colleen Yarger came from the hotel industry 10 years ago and now owns her own shop today. Colleen’s career has been a whirlwind! She always had a passion for helping others and to become a true customer advocate in whatever job she had. She truly enjoyed being a service manager and thought what better way to continue her path than to become a shop owner.

Colleen enjoys taking time for the little things and traveling, a true old soul stuck in a millennial body. She spends most of her free time with family and loves to garden. Colleen’s episodes HERE.

Key Talking Points:

• Owner of Mark’s Independent Service Owner as of January 4th, 2021. Purchased form Mark Goldsmith
• Buys the shop before owning her own home
• Came from the hotel industry (working front desk at 19 years old)- met Maylan Newton (hosted service writers school at the hotel). After sending him her resume and interview with Ryan Tunison and accepted the job without knowing what it was going to entail 
• The first day of the job was to sell work orders- didn’t have any knowledge about cars but had a customer service experience 
• Spent time learning about cars and taking classes on the weekends
• Moved back home and with the help of her business coach, had an interview with Mark- hired on a trial basis and hired after 3 days 
• Worked for Mark for 3 years and then bought the business at 29 years old 
• Constantly working with technicians on processes and procedures for business – written in tablet form
• Has 4 bays, 1 technician, and 1 apprentice technician- interviewing to gain another technician and apprentice technician 
• Female service advisor- warming and inviting to customers when they first walk-in 
• Values the importance of belonging to associations- networking with other people and gaining insight on their input  
• Succession planDo I really want to do this? Where am I at in my career? Where do I want to go from here?
• Worked with Bob Ward on the succession plan 
• Nerves took over her first day as owner- working on building self-confidence, often overthinks and second-guesses herself  
• Owners often don’t know when they want to retire- if becoming a business owner is your goal communicate that with the owner

Resources:

• Thanks to Colleen Yarger for her contribution to the aftermarket’s premier podcast.
• Link to the ‘BOOKS‘ page highlighting all books discussed in the podcast library HERE. Leaders are readers.
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